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Lynda Phoenix's avatar

Good for Romania! Now if only we could follow their example in the United States. A happy day would see the ouster of Trump and also Putin.

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Douglas's avatar

It's too late...D holds the cards

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David Maceira's avatar

This is good news. Yet I still fear for those people. And everyone who lives in Europe.

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Douglas's avatar

Russia will still attempt to destabilize Romanian government.

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David Maceira's avatar

No doubt they will.

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Anika Frey's avatar

This is wonderful news!!! Nobody wants a tyrant after witnessing our massive mistake.

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🩵MZ's avatar

Now that they see the great United States flailing, everybody is sitting up straighter and minding their P’s and Q’s and lining up their duckies. 🐥🐥 🐥Romania 🇷🇴, Canada🇨🇦. Update: Australia 🇦🇺Estonia? 🇪🇪We’re waiting for you.

Come on people, get on that list. We’re going to come back because now we know EXACTLY who our enemy is, they’re no longer hiding behind KKK sheets. Evil has no depth.

We’ll be back. 🥊💥

#EternalVigilance

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WhoDoesThat's avatar

Yay Romania ! Way2go !

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Sam Ray's avatar

Fighting off a trumpist explained why Counter-Narcissism Intel's #1 E. European country is 🇷🇴

https://samray.substack.com/p/the-trump-playbook-is-an-illusion

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Joanna Denis's avatar

BRAVO!!!

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kdsherpa's avatar

Wonderful news!!! The orange sadist appears to be doing (inadvertently, of course) something positive on the world stage.

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Chris David's avatar

Is it only Russia though?

Georgescu was given a very large boost by TikTok, the Chinese platform that appears so popular with the younger generation.

Was there evidence that Simion had an unfair advantage on TikTok too? What evidence is there that TikTok is being used as a propaganda tool of the CCP? And if this (and Twitter/X) are being used to subvert the democratic process, how should democratic nations mitigate this interference by social media platforms whose algorithms can be used in such a way?

Should we block platforms that aren't transparent with their internal logic, at least in the weeks running up to elections? If Brazil can block a whole platform for not complying with the country's online regulation, surely all nations could do the same?

We saw how voters were manipulated with microtargeted ads (among other things) on Facebook to deliver Brexit in Britain, and in the USA how much the same strategy was used to target voters down even to street addresses in swing states in 2016, resulting in Trump's election to the presidential office.

The democratic process is being seriously and effectively undermined. Radical action needs to be taken now, as was done in Brazil, and as we've seen most recently in Romania.

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Mihai-Dan Toma's avatar

I am romanian .I can confirm everithing you wrote.Good article.

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Jeff's avatar

Bravo Romania!

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ken taylor's avatar

ty.

like most ignorant Americans I knew nothing about what was going on, I didn't come across a single article on a coming election; or the stakes

I had, however a peculiar connection to Romania and probably should have taken much greater interest long ago.

My father had read an article about someone who would cut Time magazine covers and send them to the covered requesting autographs. He told me I should do the same. We were living in Stuttgart at the time and he was a civilian employee of the DOD so he asked me to write the requests. Nicolae Ceausescu was on the latest cover, pretty good article about him being a "liberal reformist.:. I cut the cover and four or five others still sent laying around and sent them off. I believe they believe they all returned them autographed. . But Ceausescu returned the cover back unsigned,but a large 8x11 signed photo and a two and half page handwritten letter.

It was in Romanian that one could read.

Two months later I left Stuttgart and returned to the States and began working in a iron foundry with my grandfather. My father did not want the photo or letter and so I brought them with me. I still had no idea what his letter said, but I thought I should send him a thank you letter as I'm had done with the others who had responded.

I wrote him a short letter and told him I had now come to the states and had taken on the foundry job and thank him for the a autographed picture and the nice letter about Romania.(I didn' t tell him I hadn't read it). A few weeks later I got a longer letter (6 pgs). and I thought mam, this is a very nice man and must be a humble leader who must be a wonderful leader and so I wrote him a letter about life in america, the Vietnam and civil rights movement etc. . He replied again...6 pages...always 6 pages for the next twenty +.years, I exchanged letters with him. When the iron curtain fell I thought he was the one communist leader who wouldn't be rejected.

Well that delusion was soon shattered and you know what happened to him, the outage and the brutality.

I still don' t know what benefit my letters had been to him, but I guess his police had been writing the letters and thought they were going something from the letters of a working. I gathered all of the letters and the picture I'd always looked at while composing my missives.

And then until your column today I never sought out information about Romanian politics.

How easily people are fooled.

Thank you very much for this letter and hope this reminisce in ignorance was not too boring.

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